The present invention relates to cable management devices and more particularly cable management devices for use with electronic components.
Computer systems and other rack-mounted electronics receive input and send output through a channel to communicate information with other electronic components. In general, the channel has taken the form of one or more cables. Each cable includes a connector at both ends, which meshes to input and output (I/O) receptors on an electronic component. When such electronic components are mounted in a rack having multiple shelves, the cables of one electronic component often fall in such a way as to block access to the cable I/O receptors of other electronic components, as well as, other components without I/O receptors which reside on lower shelves. In order to alleviate this problem, prior art cable management systems were developed. These systems often connected to the rack or the back of such components and allowed the connected cables to be grouped together and moved to one side of the rack, thus permitting dear access to the I/O receptors of the other electronic components.
One such design provides one or more hooks onto which the cables are placed creating a cable chase. Unfortunately, when a component is being serviced, added or removed, the cables may shift, be pulled or stepped on and become dislodged from the hook recreating the problem that the hook was attempting to solve. To alleviate this problem, second generation cable management systems employed hook and loop closures. Hook and loop closures provide the advantage of securing the cables in one location even when other I/O receptors or components are being serviced. Additionally, the hook and loop closures add the desirable feature of allowing additional cables to be added or removed at a later time including cables that are already connected at both ends. The hook and loop closures have two major limitations. The first limitation occurs as the result of the wide range of cable sizes and/or quantities of cables that are used with electronic components. The hook and loop closures cannot secure or provide strain relief for an entire range of cables. Although the hook and loop closures secures and strain relieves larger bundles of cables, stress placed along the cable when the cable is pulled will be directly translated to stress and strain at both the cable connectors and the electronic component""s I/O receptors when less than the number of cables for which the loop hook and loop closures is designed are used. If stress is applied to the I/O receptors, the stress can cause the component to loose data or create errors in the data. The second limitation is that the hook and loop closures are difficult to secure, sometimes requiring more than one operator. Hook and loop closures require the cables to be held in place while the hook and loop closures are threaded and tightened.
As a result of these limitations, there is a need for a cable management system that provides strain relief over a wide variety of sizes and combinations of cables and is easier for a single person to implement.
In a first embodiment of the invention there is provided a cable management system for securely holding one or more cables. The system includes a base, a lock, and an elastic member. The elastic member holds one or more cables against the base when the lock is engaged. The lock may be any one of a number of different types of locking structures including a tab, hook and loop closures, or a screw for example. The cable management system may further include a mounting mechanism for mounting the cable management system to a chassis containing components to which the one or more cables are connected. The mounting mechanism may allow the cable management to be cantilevered away from the chassis. In another embodiment, the mounting mechanism may simply be a screw mount such that the back of the base lies flush with a surface on which the cable management system is being mounted.
In yet a further embodiment, the cable management system may include a groove in the base causing the cable to be deflected into the groove which provides two or more points of friction and which prevents the one or more cables from slipping across the base when the lock is engaged.
The base may further include one or more prongs which are positioned on opposite sides of the groove and assist in both aligning the elastic member and preventing the lock from becoming disengaged when a force is placed on one or more of the cables.
In another embodiment, the side of the base that receives the one or more cables may be curved. A curvature on the surface of the base assists in distributing the cables as additional cables are added.
In yet another embodiment, the lock is a rigid member which has a shape that is received into a receptacle that is formed by the base. The lock may include a handle, which enables the stretching of the elastic member for engaging and disengaging the lock. The handle may be T-shaped or may include an orifice that is sized to receive a finger.
The cable management system, in another embodiment, may be configured to receive cables on both the top and bottom surface of the base. In such an embodiment, there are two locks and two elastic members. The locks may be engaged by stretching the elastic member so that the lock fits into a notch in the base.